


Wheel of Fortune

by sunflowerbright



Series: International Women's Day 2012 [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 10:39:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerbright/pseuds/sunflowerbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He walks away from Rose Tyler and meets Amy Pond, and he blinks and she's standing with an empty blanket in her arms, asking 'Doctor, where is Melody? What are they going to do to my daughter?'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wheel of Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Written for isilienelenihin for International Women's Day 2012. She requested 'River, Rose, Amy - Ouroboros'

Rose Tyler sees him regenerate.

Of course, she sees him _before_ he regenerates as well, but she doesn’t know that and he won’t know it until much later, of course.

But she sees him, and then she sees him regenerate, and then she sees him lost.

Of course, before all of that Rose Tyler was just a girl. And before she saw him regenerate, she saved the world, leading herself to this moment and him to the moment as well and…

She walks through the London-streets, hands tucked in pockets and he doesn’t mean to, but it _hurts_ , his cells dying, seeing her. It just hurts, and she sees him and talks to him and…

It’s the first time she sees him and the last time he sees her, and it is sort of perfect, her face partly obscured by falling snow, pink jacket glowing in the dark and he is leaning against a wall with the words _Bad Wolf_ painted on it, and he wishes he had all of that to come. But he doesn’t, Rose Tyler is over for him. It’s done.

He has River Song to come. And that’s not fair either, because she dies in a blaze of glory before he knows her, but after she knows him and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, if he hadn’t stepped into that library, then maybe their paths would have never crossed. And that makes no sense, because she already knew him.

He walks away from Rose Tyler and regenerates, and he meets Amy Pond and she smiles and is so _little_ and sweet, and he blinks and she’s standing, torn and heartbroken and holding an empty blanket in her arms, asking him, _’Doctor, what are they going to do to her? What are they going to do to my daughter?’_

And that’s not what she should be asking: what she should be asking is what _he_ is going to do to her daughter, thousands of light-years into the future, when River Song dies so he can live, dies so he can go on and meet her so she can die for him, so he can live and go on and meet her so she can die for him, so he can live and go on and meet her…

_”Tell you what,”_ he says, and Rose smiles and looks so young and the wall behind him is warm, the yellow words blazing in a golden light that sears into his back, _badwolfbadwolfbadwolfbadwolf._

_”What?”_

_”I bet you’re gonna have a really great year!”_

”I have to let you go,” he tells Amy, because he can see it already, that little girl so willing, such a pawn in this joke of a game that he has only now realized he is playing. He is not a Lord of Time. Time is the Lord of him. ”Because you’re still brilliant.”

Because she isn’t spinning in a circle yet, she’s only nearing it and he has to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

_”Oh, look at you, so young.”_

_”I bring life.”_

”Goodbye,” he says as she kisses his forehead. ”Amelia Pond.”


End file.
